January 28, 2014

The Tribe Has Spoken

On Saturday I returned from a twelve day trip to Club Med, Phuket, with my parents and children. We had a wonderful time. And twelve days is a long time. Long enough to have six $10 massages by the beach. Long enough to have two dresses made by a tailor down the road. Long enough to sample everything at the buffet at least once. Long enough to buy three pairs of shoes for $12 each, and a real, authentic, 100% genuine Jimmy Choo bag for, er, $20.

And long enough for my mother and I to decide that we ruled Club Med, and that we ought to decide who stayed, and who left.

Yes, by the end of our stay, we were getting a little... shall we say... intolerant. We liked our Club Med Village and we wanted to control who visited. Various guests, we decided, were not up to par. They irritated us, or they were loud, or obnoxious, and we wanted to vote them Off The Village.

It's Time For You To Go

We voted various Club Med guests Off The Village during our stay:
  • The woman who wore an adult-sized version of her toddler daughter's polkadot dress. (No matchy matchy in our village!);
  • The Caucasian-yet-dark-dark-chocolate-brown-skinned Donatella Versace lookalike who wore her blonde hair scraped back so tightly it made my own face hurt;
  • The man who spent three entire days taking pictures of his wife in various poses around the pool, buffet table, bar, beach and - I kid you not - gift shop;
  • The man who insisted upon facing the wrong way during the water-aerobics. WHY DID HE HAVE TO FACE THE WRONG WAY???
  • The woman sitting by the pool squeezing her husband's back pimples;
  • The woman picking her young son's nose at the breakfast table and inspecting her findings. (Seriously: a Frenchman at a neighbouring table turned around and told her sternly to arreter);
  • The group of Aussie men wearing matching novelty team shirts. (Just don't);
  • The couple who stripped off their matching pants and shirts to reveal male/female matching bathers. (We said no matchy matchy!);
  • The little girl who ran on stage in every single performance every single night (First time was cute. So was second. Third, fourth, fifth and subsequent not so much);
  • The group of 23 students who went everywhere together and giggled preposterously at the slightest provocation. (Groups of six or more are far too cheerily rambunctious and make the rest of us feel awkward and left out);
  • Any people who hog the middle of the pathways so that I cannot pass at the brisk, walking-off-the-buffet-pace I prefer.
They may not have left. Hell, they may not have even known that they were voted off. But The Tribe Had Spoken, and that was all the satisfaction we needed.

Do complete strangers ever irritate you for no good reason?

25 comments:

  1. Hahaha! welcome back Kerri.
    Picking her son's nose at breakfast? WHAT THE ACTUAL!!

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  2. Public nose picking and inspection, and back zit squeezing, is NOT cool. Gag. There should be public awareness posters on the back of toilet doors or something if people are STILL unaware of this. Welcome back! Xx

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  3. I'd have voted them all off too. Were there any sniffers and drink slurpers lurking around ... because those puppies would have been first off my Club Med.

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  4. Hahaha!...I applaud your list, Kerri.
    Yes, complete strangers irritate me constantly (litter-bugs, supercilious posers, the list is quite long), however, one of my New Year's resolutions was to be more tolerant, more zen and I am heroically sticking to this...
    But one type I'd add to your list is the loved-up couple who must share all that love by smooching publicly. I'm happy for you but pul-eease! :)

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  5. Welcome home. I have become the most intolerant person in the world the past few weeks. In particular I want my overly-social neighbours to quit with the parties so we can all get a good night's sleep. Bah humbug. Everyone...back to work!

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  6. Intolerant & middle-agedJanuary 28, 2014 at 3:35 PM

    Think I may have written this comment and then had no knowledge of it! Sniffing and slurping and eating with your mouth open need to become crimes punishable by death. We can HEAR you people

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  7. Oh my god, someone was picking her child's nose at the table? What is that? Weren't there toilets close by or something. Erk, the horror. This is only marginally more offensive than the matchy-matchy. That is simply not okay. I once turned up to visit a friend to find both her and her 18 month old daughter wearing denim overalls and white t-shirts. I instantly and without regret ended the friendship.. (okay I didn't but she was sternly warned).


    Strangers irritate me all the time..sigh...

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  8. Ewww...nose and pimple picking? I went to a bogan style caravan park and didn't see anything that disgusting! We did come back with nits though (or one child did) so that's probably worse.

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  9. no no no no! we need these people to spice up teh people watching activity - how boring if there weren't the matchy matchy types, the nose pickers and pimple squeezers, the love birds and eternal photographers! Nothing to watch and nothing to gossip about! :)

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  10. I've missed your posts! Welcome back. I thought I was the only one who sat around the pool deciding who should stay and who should go. My teenagers call me 'judgemental' which sort of takes the fun out of it.

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  11. Kerri, it's Club MED, not Club TRUMP. No nose picking there. Just comb overs....

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  12. Hahahaha! May I vote my neighbour off the building? :P Welcome back!

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  13. The judgmental part IS the fun!!!! Your kids have no clue!!!! x

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  14. Clearly I am pitching my holidays too high!

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  15. No. You should totally have ended the friendship. No second chance.

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  16. Parties are utterly unacceptable. They should be evicted. Even if they own the place.

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  17. Didn't notice any sniffers (sunshine and all that) but slurpers a plenty!!!

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  18. Thank you! And agree. But TRAGIC that we need to tell people!!! UGH

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